The present invention relates generally to photography and, more particularly, to composition of digital photographs.
Photography has long been a popular medium of creative expression. In traditional photography, factors such as composition and exposure settings, all contribute to creating an esthetic photograph. Of these, composition is a particularly important consideration. To aid in composition of the subject, cameras typically include indicia such as cross-hairs, grid lines, or the like, to help the photographer in alignment. In traditional film cameras the alignment indicia typically are etched on a screen of a viewfinder assembly. In digital cameras, the alignment indicia typically are presented as iconic images on a view-screen, commonly an LCD screen, atop the live image, thereby serving as reference in aligning the subject of the photograph.
More recently, some digital cameras include several indicia schemes, providing various configurations of indicia to aid the photographer in composing the photograph. The various schemes typically are geared for a particular photographic composition such as a one-person portrait or a two-person portrait. Some digital cameras can be prompted to depict the indicia on the resulting photograph, if desired. Thus, such photographs include a composite of the live image from the camera and the indicia. For example, some cameras provide overlays having the current date and time, serving as a time stamp for the photograph. Some digital cameras have provided factory-installed overlays, simply for comical effect. For example, overlays have been provided that depict a contrived magazine cover having a blank spot for a person's head. In use, the overlay is depicted on the view screen of the camera. The photographer aligns the camera such that the subject's head is positioned within the blank spot of the overlay, and then takes the picture. As a result, a photograph is generated depicting the subject on the cover of a magazine.
Similarly, it can be desired to compose multiple images in a single photograph. For example, certain film cameras allow a photographer to expose a single frame of film multiple times. This “multi-exposure” mechanism allows a photographer to open the shutter multiple times without advancing the film between the exposures. Light from each of the exposures is recorded onto a single frame of film. However, the results are often dependent on the photographer precisely controlling many aspects of the composition or at least making an educated guess regarding alignment of the stored image with the live image in the viewfinder. Insofar as the photographer is unable to precisely recall the prior photograph, the quality of the resulting composite is left to chance. If an error is made on either exposure, both exposures are typically rendered useless.
In contrast, in digital photography, multiple-exposure photographs typically are created in post processing. For example, a photographer will capture separate digital images. Then, using a personal computer running software for digital image editing (e.g., Adobe® Photoshop® available from Adobe Systems, Inc), the photographer will composite the separate images into a single image. During this process, the photographer typically will need to register the images so that corresponding features within the images are properly aligned. Since each image was taken separately, there is a good bit of guesswork involved in composing each image. Thus, it is common that the contents of the images will not align precisely. During post processing, portions of each image typically must be cropped to conform the images, which can eliminate desired aspects of the image.
A post processing method called compositing can also be used to refine improperly exposed images. When a photographer tries to capture an image with a large disparity between bright and dark regions it is common for the bright areas to overexpose to excessive lightness and/or for the dark areas to underexpose to excessive darkness. The traditional solution to this problem is to put the camera on a tripod and shoot multiple images at a range of different shutter and/or aperture settings. Then in post processing, the images are composited together, which can be tedious and time consuming. Even utilizing this approach, it is possible to make exposure errors which might not be detected until the editing process. However, by that time, arranging to remake the photograph might be difficult or impossible. Thus, despite the aforementioned advancements in photography, a certain amount of good fortune is needed to achieve a desired esthetic in a photograph composed of multiple exposures. Post processing can be complicated and prone to failure due to errors made at the time of exposure.
It should, therefore, be appreciated that there remains a need for a system of digital image composition that allows users to create, modify, or personalize digital images from a digital camera to include image composition and image exposure without undue reliance on post processing. The present invention fulfills this need and others.